Amazon Update

Wednesday twitter was a firestorm of rage and fury as the word spread that Amazon was selling a book about how to be a better pedophile and not get caught.

You can find my original post about it here.

I was blown away about this and quite shocked that a company so many blogger and parents rely on was selling a book such as that based on the freedom of speech and press argument. One day I was looking for books for my kids on that website and the next day I found out that the same website was selling a book to possibly endanger my kids.

Thousands, if not more, of people called, wrote, and emailed Amazon.com asking for the book to be removed. Many people were given the response that Amazon.com did not desire to cause harm to children but they were not pulling the book because they did not want to censor the books they sell. This comment just caused more anger and got more people involved, even CNN's Anderson Cooper. As one person on twitter said to me, "If it was a book about how to bomb the twin towers, it would have been removed by now." It took about 12 hours for Amazon.com to finally pull the book. That is 12 hours too long.

However, the worst part is that Amazon.com has still not released a comment and the author of the book told CNN that Amazon.com is just reviewing the book. So what does that truly mean? Does it mean that the book will never come back? The author also told CNN that the book will be back on Amazon.com. Is Amazon.com just waiting out the fury before quietly placing the book back for sale?

Does that one book really matter that now it has been discovered that Amazon.com sells several other controversial books about pedophilia and pictures of underage naked children? Mama Says has a great post about the controversial Amazon.com products that they are continuing to sell.

The deciding factor isn't really about this one book, it's about a line. There's a line of morality that all of us have the right to set for ourselves. My family chooses to set the line pretty high, expecting the people that we support with our money to be worthy of that choice. No matter what my family chooses, your family has to choose their own level of what they will and will not tolerate when it comes to morality. If Amazon.com's decision to pull the book, even temporarily, satisfies that line for you than please continue to shop with them. I have made the decision not to shop with them, maybe even permanently.

No matter what, you have to choose where you line is because now this has opened a whole can of worms. What you'll find with a little digging is that other big name stores, online and box stores, all sell questionable objects. How far is too far for you? Think about it, make your choice, and don't let anyone judge you because of that choice.